Hillary: Congress Should Defer To Executive Branch

Hillary Clinton seems to have herself in two jams now, due to this New York Times piece. The context is how her campaign is split on what to do about her 2002 Iraq War vote. More noteworthy is her strong belief in both executive authority and the need for Congress to take a deferential role when it comes to executive decision making.

Contrast that with the candidate leaving the campaign trail to participate in a debate to undermine that very thing and Clinton can't help but be exposed as someone who is acting purely out of political motivation during a time of war, as opposed to someone standing up for a principle in which she apparently believes quite strongly.

Hillary Clinton is looking to strip Bush of the very thing she would demand were she elected President. The dichotomy contributes to her image as more of a calculating politician, than a potential leader who can be counted upon to take tough stands on principle - a quality the Presidency often requires.

Several advisers, friends and donors said in interviews that they had urged her to call her vote a mistake in order to appease antiwar Democrats, who play a critical role in the nominating process. Yet Mrs. Clinton herself, backed by another faction, never wanted to apologize — even if she viewed the war as a mistake — arguing that an apology would be a gimmick.

In the end, she settled on language that was similar to Senator John Kerry’s when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004: that if she had known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraqi weaponry, she would never have voted for the Senate resolution authorizing force.

But more interesting is how she is said to be thinking like a President while mounting her current campaign and her strong belief in executive authority is apparently strong enough to warrant repeating in the story.

Mrs. Clinton’s belief in executive power and authority is another factor weighing against an apology, advisers said. As a candidate, Mrs. Clinton likes to think and formulate ideas as if she were president — her “responsibility gene,” she has called it. In that vein, she believes that a president usually deserves the benefit of the doubt from Congress on matters of executive authority.

... Her approach to leadership and national security was forged during her eight years in the White House: She believes in executive authority and Congressional deference, her advisers said, and is careful about suggesting that Congress can overrule a commander in chief.

Comments

[JimK]

I tried to ping you with a trackback, but the Typepad system is trying to make trackbacks answer a captcha - which isn't possible.

Anyway...my riff off your highlighted text is here. Ping!

http://tinyurl.com/2ub3bf

[Purple Avenger]

Hillary is the most intelligent of all the would be dem contenders.

[Kite]

Congress does not have the constitutional power to over-ride the presdident in executive power. Congress is there as a checks and balances systems....they control the moneyflow. If congress wants to stop the war then they can defund it, but they cannot provide an override of the president. The constitution does not give the Congress, Senate, or the Supreme Court the powers to perform such an act.

So, how about we quit pretending that Hillary, Pelosi, and the rest of the Senate and the House have some sort of higher power than the president.